


and so please help them with your youth

by jugheadjones



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Arm Wrestling, Family Feels, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Hospitals, Injury Recovery, Little Archie, Physical Therapy, Recovery, Rehabilitation, what has this season done to me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 23:44:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12376605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jugheadjones/pseuds/jugheadjones
Summary: "Do you want to know how to win at arm wrestling?" Fred had asked once, his eyes bright in the dark cab of the truck. "You have to tell them you're going to win. They're going to come in and sit down thinking they're going to beat you. You want them to look in your eyes and see that's not true."or, Fred teaches Archie to walk. Archie returns the favour.





	and so please help them with your youth

**2009.**

It’s coming up past nine-forty-five on a Friday, which is the latest Little Archie’s ever been out somewhere with his dad. He’s squeezed in beside Fred on a polished wooden bench in the corner of Al’s, the type of shabby-but-clean restaurant and bar that hangs a lot of old license plates and neon tubes on the walls. They’re crowded in with a bunch of guys from Fred’s crew, all in flannel and workboots, chatting and laughing around him like old friends. Archie’s feet don’t quite touch the ground in this booth, but he feels about ten feet tall.

Fred’s workers are all good to him - talking earnestly to him about school, taking an interest in the frenetic stories he tells them about his team sports. Archie this young is an uncoordinated mess of gangly limbs - “Fred’s boy,” says one of the foremen amusedly when Archie shows off a purple bruise he’d got from running into the goalposts at soccer practice, and Fred cuffs the guy playfully on the head. Al’s jukebox has most of a _Best of Bruce Springsteen_ album, and Fred’s selection is thumping cheerfully through the room.

_Working on the highway, (laying down the blacktop) Working on the highway, (all day long I don't stop), Working on the highway, (blasting through the bedrock)_

They’d let him wear one of their hard hats for almost a whole hour earlier in the day, and Archie is waiting patiently for the evening to reach that kind of high again. Fred’s work friends mostly like to talk about their kids and their spouses, which Fred never tires of listening to, but Archie doesn’t care much to hear about other little boys around his age. Instead, he spends the time with his eyes glued to his father, looking up at the way his eyes sparkle in the dim bar light, the way his fingers toy absently with his bottle of beer.

Fred’s allowing himself only one, because he has to drive home later. There’s still some left, condensation gathering appealingly on the bottom third of the bottle, but Archie knows better by now then to ask for a sip - he’d tried that over dinner a few months ago and been rewarded with a nasty, acrid mouthful that tasted to him like something rotten. He figures the day you take a drink of beer and enjoy it is the day you know you’re a grownup for real.

Two of Fred’s crew have started an arm wrestling match at a nearby table, and Archie watches them struggle with interest. Fred shakes his head at them and lifts the bottle back to his lips.

“Are you taking the winner, Archie?” asks one of Fred’s co-workers from the opposite side of the both, noticing where Archie’s attention has landed. Fred grins down at his son.

“He’d have to go easy on you, Greg.”

The larger of the two men slams the smaller man’s arm down on the wood, and laughter drifts up from the surrounding tables. The winner, a hefty blond man with thick forearms, looks up and grins over at them. “Hey, Fred. Come on over here.”

“Oh, no-” protests Fred, smiling around the rim of his bottle. “Greg’ll take you.”

Greg shakes his head. “Not me. Go on, Fred, take him down a peg.”

“Yeah, Fred,” urges the man who’d lost, massaging his elbow. “Come on.”

“Oh, all right,” concedes Fred with a grin, and everyone cheers. Fred has a look in his eyes like he’d been planning on saying yes all along. Archie squirms obediently away from his dad’s side to give him room to get out of the booth.

“Don’t worry,” says Greg to Archie. “Your dad never loses.”

Archie looks dubiously at the table where Fred’s sliding into the vacant seat. Archie knows the blond man somewhat well - his name is Larry, and he’d been the one to offer Archie his too-big yellow hard hat - and he has a chest broad and arms as thick as a tree. Fred seems small in comparison, at least half a foot shorter and much lighter. Larry moves his drink aside so that Fred can plant his elbow on the wood, and for a moment they seem comically mismatched - Fred’s arm easily half the width of Larry’s as they clasp hands.

“Go, Fred,”

“C’mon Larry-”

The two men eye each other up. Fred leans into the pressure, his eyes never leaving Larry’s face, while Larry drops his gaze to their joined arms. Both of them have rolled their sleeves ritualistically up to the elbow so that the tendons stand out in high definition under the skin. Archie bites his lip and plays with the napkin his dad had left behind.

Fred puts up a good fight, all concentration, his straining arm trembling with the effort of matching Larry’s pressure. Larry, teeth gritted, starts slowly bending Fred’s wrist and forearm to the side, and Archie’s sure for a second that Fred won’t have enough strength to stop him. But Fred stops their hands a few inches from the top of the table. Fred’s knuckles are white where he’s clasping Larry’s hand.

“Finish him, Larry-”

“Get him, Fred!”

Archie watches as the shaking mesh of their clenched fists begins to move upright again, Fred’s eyes narrowed in complete focus. Larry’s jaw is tight, a muscle working in his cheek as he stares at their clasped hands. Fred grunts as Larry wrenches his arm closer down to the table again, and the blond glances up into his face, eyes narrowed with determination. They meet each other's gaze.

“You’ve got him, Fred-” calls Greg, shooting little Archie a confident wink. Archie frowns.

“Do it, Fred!”

“Larry, take him down-”

Fred forces Larry’s arm over and manages to pin him to the wood. The bar erupts into cheers, and everyone at the booth thumps their bottles on the table. Archie claps like he’s just seen a magic trick, his mouth open in surprise and joy.

“Oh, _you_ -” begins Larry, supremely unimpressed, and swallows the swear word that would have followed it if Archie hadn’t been present, flashing Archie a guilty look and compromising by reaching over the table and cuffing Fred on the back of the head. Larry and Fred have known each other since high school, so he can get away with that. No one else on the crew dares. Archie knows with a deep kind of pride that they respect Fred too much to try. Two more guys take turns arm-wrestling Fred, but they don’t even come close.

“You’re so strong,” marvels Archie as they’re walking back to the truck, his face glowing with admiration.

“Strong’s only half of it,” says Fred in his _this-is-a-teachable-moment_ voice, a victorious smile playing on his lips all the same. He looks fondly at his son as he ruffles Archie’s hair. “The other half is the mental game.”

They give Fred’s friend Phil a ride home after, because of how much he’s had to drink, so that they’re all kind of squished in the front seat.

“Do you want to sit with me, Arch?” asks Fred casually when they pause at a stoplight, because Archie’s too big now to just pull onto his lap when the mood strikes him. But Archie still wants him to, so he says yes, and Fred lets him climb into the driver's seat and sit between his knees. Sometimes Fred used to let him steer when he did that, but he doesn’t now.

“Careful,” cautions Phil, glancing at Archie on Fred’s lap. “Cops are out.”

Fred laughs, and Archie feels it through all of his bones, as warm and as comforting as the heat from the radiator. “What, all two of them?”

In the dim light he can see a glimpse of his dad’s reflection in the driver’s side window: the strongest man he’s ever known, the confident tilt of his jaw outlined in the glow of the streetlamps. Archie watches the headlights of other cars stream past them on the opposite side of the road, and feels as sure and as safe as he’s ever felt before. He understands suddenly what Jughead’s always told him about the times FP takes him out on the motorbike.

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll crash?” he had always asked.

Jughead had shrugged, a haphazard up and down of his shoulders. “My dad won’t crash with me on it.”

He understands that now: that Fred would _not_ crash, or get stopped, or let him be hurt in any way. That there was some kind of magic binding him as long as he was sitting on his dad’s lap, Fred’s heartbeat pressed up against the back of his RIVERDALE ELEMENTARY T-shirt.

They wait idling at the curb to make sure Phil gets in, which Fred always does for people, especially dropping Archie’s friends off from sleepovers.

“Do you want to know how to win at arm wrestling?” Fred asks him as Phil’s fumbling with his keys on the front porch. Archie has slid back into the vacant space on the passenger seat, but that feeling of security still lingers. It’s everywhere in the space between them, warm in the cab of the truck. 

Archie _does_ , but he wants to hear his dad tell him more. He nods.

Fred leans in toward his son. “You have to tell them you’re going to win. They’re going to come in and sit down thinking they’re going to beat you. You want them to look in your eyes and see that that’s not true. That’s the secret: it’s about asserting dominance. You tell them who’s boss. Not with your words, with your eyes.”

“Really?”

“Really. You have to believe you’re the winner before you even start.”

“Is that how you beat him?”

“That’s how I beat him. I established that up front. The rest of it was easy.”

Fred straightens up, throws one last wave to Phil, who’s made it inside the door now, and starts the engine. “Now let's get you home before your mother kills me.”

* * *

**2017.**  
  
Fred has physical therapy in the hospital three times a week, because he’s learning to walk again. In the meantime they’ve provided him with crutches, which he hates, and a wheelchair, which he outright despises. Mary tells him to appreciate it, because buying a wheelchair is expensive. Fred used to drive miles up in the mountains for ski trips in a beat-up VW bus that cost about the same, and can’t muster any appreciation.

It worries Archie, sometimes, because he slips a lot on crutches, and the wheelchair is safer. But there’s something particularly frightening about days when he doesn’t have to coax his dad to use the wheelchair if he wants to go down the hall to the vending machine, days when Fred resigns himself to its black fabric seat and discoloured foot rests of his own free will. If Fred’s sitting in a wheelchair when Archie gets there after school it means his spirit and his body are feeling about on par right now. It means he’s kind of given up the fight for a bit.

Fred also has a device that’s kind of like a push-cart that he uses to walk with, and a long set of bars in the therapy room that he uses to practice moving without it. Archie hangs out there after school three times a week, helping him through his rehabilitation with the patience and faithfulness of a devoted gym partner. Fred’s physical therapist is cheerful about Archie’s presence, and the nurses give him big, relieved smiles when they see him there. As long as Fred has someone to put on a brave face for, a full recovery seems imminent.

It helps that it’s Archie - the head doctor, the one who had stopped Archie from rushing into the emergency room the first day, had told him in no uncertain terms that he had himself to thank at least as much as the hospital staff for Fred pulling through. Apparently even when Fred was unconscious, his brain activity had been up when Archie was in the room and down when he wasn't. Archie’s flattered, but finds this the opposite of surprising. The list of sacrifices Fred has made for him over the years is fathomless.

“Teach your kid to walk once, and then he has to teach you,” Fred grumbles regularly, but his frustration never gives way to embarrassment, and there’s something special in their mutual trust during these sessions, a new depth and permanence to their already tremendous connection. Fred hasn’t been wholly well for a long time, not since they chased Grundy out of town, or maybe even earlier, when they pulled another man’s son out of the river, and the hallmarks of stress are everywhere in his body. He’s malnourished, overworked, overtired, muscles drawn tense and hair prematurely thin. But he's doing better, despite this new ordeal. Fred seems infinitely less worried about a potential hitman being out for his blood than he had about Jason’s killer on the loose, and it isn’t exactly hard to do the math. Fred’s fear for his own well-being is negligible. Fred’s fear for Archie’s life borders on mania.

Also, Fred’s a fighter. Alice Cooper had been right about that. Whatever shape he’s been in, he’s stronger than he looks. He has bruises up and down his shins from falling, but he hasn’t stopped getting up. Fred doesn’t even seem upset about his wallet, although he’s going to be paying card replacement fees out the ass for the next year. “Cards can be replaced,” he tells Archie, who’s surprised at his apathy. “They’re just stuff, Arch. They don’t matter.”

 _You matter,_ is the unspoken next phrase, replaced by a gentle ruffle through Archie’s hair. _Only you._ Archie thinks about it the whole way home on the bus. Feels a little bit lighter that day than he has in awhile.

Some days it feels like they’re going up, and other days it feels like they’re not going anywhere. Today’s the second kind. Fred’s sitting back in his wheelchair after a third failed attempt at walking without any assistance.

“I’m done,” he says when Archie brings him his water bottle, reaching up and grasping Archie’s forearm to steady himself. There's an out-of-date CD player spinning a scratched Bob Seger disk in the corner, the closest thing to Springsteen the hospital has. He says it again, more insistently, when Archie doesn't react. "I'm done, Archie." 

“Just get your breath back, we’ll try again.”

Fred doesn’t say anything, but the silence is a rejection in itself. The whole front of his gray t-shirt is soaked in sweat. Archie crouches down beside his chair.

“Dad, look at me.”

Fred’s eyes meet his.

“You can do this.”

Fred shakes his head tiredly, eyes leaving Archie’s face to stray up to the window. It’s windy outside, branches waving against the sky. His shoulders lift and fall with every breath, his chest heaving under his shirt. When his breathing has finally slowed to its normal rate, Archie grips Fred under the armpits and guides him carefully to his feet. “C’mon, Dad.”

“Archie-” They’re pressed close together as he lifts him, and their mutual _alive_ ness seems to block out all other feeling - the sweat of their bodies, the damp heat of Fred’s hand on his skin, the weight of him on his arms. His chest swells against Archie’s with his breathing, his pulse racing under his skin. Fred grips Archie’s shoulders once for balance and then manages to stand on his own.

“You can do it.” Archie steps back until they’re separated by about ten feet of floor. Fred stays where he is, looking tiredly across the room. He’s lost weight, and the t-shirt and sweatpants are loose on him.

“Son-”

“Just walk across the room to me, that's all you have to do.”

“If I fall, I'm going to break my leg.”

“Then don't fall.”

“It's not that _simple_ , Archie.”

They stand facing off each other like opponents going into battle. Fred’s never seemed older to Archie than right now, even when he’d begged him to stop investigating the Jason Blossom case outside Mustang’s apartment. The sunlight through the blinds falls in rays through his hair and casts shadows over his face, filling in the hollow places.

Fred glances back down at his wheelchair, looking like he wants nothing more than to be back in it. Archie swallows. “What’s the secret of winning at arm wrestling?”

Fred looks back at him, but doesn’t say anything. Scrubs tiredly at his eyes.

“Come on,” presses Archie. “You’re the one who told me. What’s-”

“Believing you’re better than the other guy.”

It floods Archie with a relief he hadn’t known he was waiting for. “Then do it.”

“You’re being a real hardass with me, you know that?”

“If I am, it’s because I know you can take it. Because I know you need to hear it.”

“Geez, Arch, is this little league practice?”

“ _Dad_. Look into my face and tell me you won't even try.”

Fred meets his gaze evenly, his eyes suddenly even older, his lips drawn resolutely together. Then his shoulders sag in defeat. “Fine.”

“I’m right here,” promises Archie. And then, when Fred doesn’t move: “Dad.”

“I’m working on it.”

“Close your eyes.”

“Do I have to do this with my eyes closed?”

“Coach Clayton says visualization is half the game.”

“Coach Clayton doesn't know everything. His ERA in our last year of high school was the highest I've ever-”

“Dad, quit being petty and just focus.”

A smile twitches at the corner of Fred’s lips, but he shuts his eyes obediently.

“You gotta establish dominance,” says Archie, watching Fred’s hands curl into fists. “You gotta tell yourself who’s boss.”

Fred nods.

“They’re gonna come in wanting you to lose. You’re gonna tell them that you’re going to win.”

Fred opens his eyes, and Archie knows without having seen him take a step forward that he’s going to make it. There’s that same coolness in them that he’d seen in the car all those years ago. The belief.

“Come on,” says Archie softly, the words barely there. Fred steps toward him on shaking legs, hands still curled tight. He’s breathing heavily, but he keeps his balance, moving slow. At halfway across the room he unclenches his fists and then tightens them again, wavering slightly.

“You can do it,” urges Archie, but Fred only jerks his head in acknowledgement and keeps walking. When he’s a half-foot away from the other side of the room he stumbles, but Archie steps forward as quickly as he can and grabs him in a hug. They fall into each other’s arms, laughing a bit, crying a bit more. Archie holds them both upright until Fred can find his footing.

“Made it,” says Fred simply, somewhere beyond Archie’s shoulder, and the quiet nonchalance in his voice makes Archie laugh harder and more tearfully. Fred’s not crying when he pulls back but his cheeks are damp. He tugs Archie in for another embrace when he sees the tears in his eyes, holding Archie gently to him with a hand pressed to the back of his hair.

Once he’s caught his breath again, Fred walks slowly back to his chair with Archie behind him.

No bars, no crutch, no nothing.  


**Author's Note:**

> comments help fred recover


End file.
